


Serenade

by FromAnonymousToZ



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Can you tell by reading this I dont know a thing about music?, Enoch is complacent in what I guess is sort of a murder, Fluff, I dont use that word often enough, In which the beast admits to leading people on to turn them into trees, M/M, Not So Subtle Flirting, Singing, Songs, Such a good word, The Beast has low moral standards, another quick story inspired by a prompt given to my tumblr, meddlesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: Had the Beast been a mortal, Enoch is sure he would have been an opera singer.Enoch muses about the Beast's singing.
Relationships: The Beast/Enoch (Over the Garden Wall)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Serenade

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from a prompt given to my tumblr [here](https://doyouknowhowtowaltz.tumblr.com/). Feel free to drop by if you have questions, prompts, suggestions, or just want to look at all my Beastnoch drawings. If you're worried you might be bothering me or that I might be busy with another prompt, don't worry. You're not bothering me, and I'm not busy. I'll be delighted!

Had the Beast been a mortal, Enoch is sure he would have been an opera singer.

The Beast is far from Pottsfeild. So far, Enoch cannot feel his ever gnawing hunger even when he searches for it. 

And yet, his song rings out over the land. It is quieter than when the Beast sings in Pottsfeild, of course, but still resounding. It sounds as if he is only a few leagues away, though it must be several hundred.

Enoch is unsure if its ability to carry is mostly due to magic or the Beast’s sheer volume.

Either way, he is always grateful for the opportunity to hear any of the Beast’s songs.

Enoch had only ever had the privilege of seeing the Beast sing to a living mortal once. 

It had been a young boy, one who had wandered out of the woods, tears in his eyes trying to explain that he was being chased. 

Enoch hadn't intended to send the boy back into the woods, at least not when he had first stumbled into the town meeting. The poor lad had been startled by Mr. Leftlin, who was in the middle of picking up a new pumpkin head to replace his old one. 

The boy had let out a blood-curdling scream and fled from the barn, his sobs filling the air behind him.

Enoch, startled, had slipped into the catskin to follow the boy to the border to ensure he wouldn't come back to cause trouble or further disturb the peace. 

Enoch could still see the boy through the trees when he stumbled and fell, curling up in a ball on the forest floor. 

The Beast had swept out of the shadows as if he had been there waiting for the boy. 

It was his hymn for wayward souls, of course. The Beast insisted he could bring up souls to other songs, but Enoch didn't quite believe that. Yet, unlike the few times, the Beast had sung his operatic hymn, it was soft and gentle, like a lullaby sung by a loving parent. 

The song was soft, so soft it barely reached the catskin’s sensitive ears as if it was something private as if it was something Enoch was not meant to bear witness to. 

It was a song from hunter to prey. 

And yet, Enoch had been unable to look away. 

The boy trembled with fear, whimpering when the Beast first towered over him, but as the Beast began to sing, he relaxed, fear giving way to tiredness. His eyes fixed upon swirling pools of light embedded in shadow. 

A half-choked sob was all the noise he made before he was hushed by the Beast’s gentle song.

Roots and vines slowly crept up along the boy, in a final embrace. His flesh hardened into bark, eyes growing dull. 

The Beast continues to sing softly even as bark covers the boy’s face. He continues to sing until the small sapling stops rustling and growing. 

Slowly an arm reaches out of shadow and fur to caress sickly leaves. 

The hymn dies slowly, petering off into the silence. 

The Beast regards the little plant carefully, eyes whirling.

“A bit close to the border,” The Beast murmurs, attention still entirely on the little tree.

Then his head swings up, eyes spinning with colors, and stares the catskin directly in the eye. 

“I’m sure Enoch won't mind.” He says, voice loud and clear in the catskin’s ears. He then turns and vanishes off into the growing shadows of sunset, his hunting song already ringing up through the land and dancing through new leaves. 

The catskin had swallowed thickly in a way Enoch could not entirely blame on its biology. 

It had taken nearly two decades to work up the nerve to ask the Beast about the event, though he could not bring himself to ask if the Beast had intended the show for him.

“Why don’t they run?” Enoch asks abruptly, and the Beast glances up from where he is sprawled in Enoch’s loft, seeing how many ribbons he can get away with tearing off the maypole. 

“Who?” The Beast asks, his curious gaze fixed on Enoch.

“Your little wayward souls.” Enoch murmurs, pulling a ribbon out of the Beasts claws, lest he lose yet another one. “Surely, they know when you come what is going to happen to them.” 

“You’d be surprised, Harvest Lord.” The Beast says, finding another ribbon to fiddle with. “Very few of them have any more than an inkling of what is to come, only that it is something to be feared.” 

“Doesn’t the fear drive them to flee? Or struggle? You’ve told me about souls that are hard to wear down, but I don't believe you’ve ever indicated they resist physically.” 

The Beast pauses as if considering.

“They do not,” He says, at last, turning his gaze from Enoch to the ribbon in his claws. “Most are too weak or have already given up when I come to bring up edeltrees. Those who would struggle calm when I sing.” 

“Magic?” 

The Beast tilts his head back to stare into the maypole’s eyes and blinks. 

“Lord of the Peaceful Dead, surely you are not implying that I use _magic_ to enchant mortals.” 

Enoch cannot help but grin at the offended tone of the Beast’s voice. 

“It is not such an outlandish assumption, I believe sirens do a similar thing.”

The Beast huffs. 

“My songs are hypnotic because my singing is hypnotic, not because of some menial parlor magic.” His voice is sharp. 

Enoch chuckles, gently soothing over the Beast’s prickling furs with his ribbons. 

“You have no idea how to use magic to hypnotize mortals, do you, Winter Warden?” 

“Perhaps not.” The Beast huffs, and Enoch laughs. 

Luring in mortals was, of course, not the only thing the Beast could do with his voice. 

Enoch could sing reasonably well and reasonably well below any mortal range for that matter, though he had some difficulty singing above it for any extended note. 

The Beast had no such troubles with the range of his voice and fully used the scope of his voice when singing. 

There were some notes the Beast could hit that reduced the fabric of reality into something fluid and warm, easy to manipulate, and warp. He sang other songs that brought reality into crystal focus, sharp and brittle right at the edge of breaking. Some songs made time hold still, like a breath in cold air suspended and frozen when the Beast lifted his voice to melody.

Yes, the Beast was quite a singer. 

“I must admit, I’m impressed, Hope Eater, by how you use your song to manipulate mortals.” 

The Beast hums. 

“Yes,” He murmurs. “Unfortunately, it seems to only enchant mortals. Such a shame it doesn't work on meddlesome Harvest Lords.”

Enoch laughs, his mirth rippling through his ribbons. 

“You must have so many maidens fawning over your song,” Enoch teases. 

“It's mostly young men, actually.”

“Oh?” Enoch croons. 

“It doesn't matter,” The Beast murmurs. “Their hopes and despairs are just as sweet when they realize the identity of their beloved singer.” 

“Do you sing something special for them?” 

“For the suitors?” 

“Yes.” Enoch coos as he slips a ribbon into a neat bow around the Beast’s antler. 

“I do.” The Beast’s claws dance up to scratch at the bow and tug it into a more comfortable position. “Why do you ask, Lord of Pottsfeild?”

“Will you sing it for me, Hope Eater?”

The Beast looks up at Enoch, eyes tinged with blue for a long moment appraising him. 

Enoch knows he isn't terribly subtle. 

Enoch stares down at those captivating eyes, his ribbons flickering, and the maypole’s face pulled into a broad grin.

Slowly and deliberately, the Beast blinks, eyes flashing blue. 

The Beast’s head swings down to the ribbon in his claws. 

“Of course, Harvest Lord,” He purrs.

The Beast throws his head back and begins to sing. 

The song reverberates through Enoch’s ribbons and refracts through his being, bouncing about the walls of the barn sung for him and him alone. 

It rumbles down through the wood of the barn walls, seeping into the dirt and wrapping itself up in Enoch’s being. Enoch's buried half-sleeping parts rear their heads to tangle themselves into the melody, weaving it between roots and bones and plenty. 

Every thread of his being pulls taught, vibrating with every crest and fall of the Beast’s song. Until Enoch is perfectly in tune with the Beast's song of suitors.

The Beast accepts Enoch’s humming harmony with a flash of blue dancing through his eyes and continues his song.

Enoch watches adoringly as the Beast’s eyes slide closed as he sings, ribbons caressing and billowing.

No, Enoch thinks, the Beast was wrong.

His singing doesn't just work on mortals.

It works just fine charming Harvest Lords.

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from a prompt given to my tumblr [here](https://doyouknowhowtowaltz.tumblr.com/). Feel free to drop by if you have questions, prompts, suggestions, or just want to look at all my Beastnoch drawings. If you're worried you might be bothering me or that I might be busy with another prompt, don't worry. You're not bothering me, and I'm not busy. I'll be delighted!
> 
> These have been writing themselves lately.


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